


Life on a Rail

by whatswronglittlefellow



Category: Half-Life
Genre: Chapter 8: On A Rail (Half-Life), Gen, Morality, Mortality, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:08:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24485632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatswronglittlefellow/pseuds/whatswronglittlefellow
Summary: Gordon Freeman kills soldiers and contemplates a recent near-death experience.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	Life on a Rail

In self-defense class, Gordon Freeman was taught that murder was only acceptable as a last resort. Gordon recalled this as he mowed down troops across the water, watching their blood splatter onto the ducts behind them, the sound of their shouting barely audible over the blasting of the machine gun. They were all on the ground, now. Just inert lumps of flesh.

Gordon rounded a corner and scrambled up a short flight of stairs. He looked down the catwalk. He heard a beeping behind two wooden crates, stacked on top of each other. He lobbed two grenades down, to be safe.

He had killed someone for the first time today. He had killed so many people today.

The ground shook and the boxes and hidden turret exploded in a deafening clamor. Gordon approached the rubble, his eyes instinctively landing on a lever. He wasn’t going to entertain the thought that the soldiers’ lives should be preserved in the place of his. He was doing the right thing, here. He was working to protect himself, his friends, the Earth. These soldiers were sicced on a bunch of elderly scientists. Besides, the resonance cascade that rocked the facility had inescapably turned the environment into one where every man was for himself. He had to stop this.

And then what? The military was after him. Would he spend the rest of his days in hiding? Would they understand the situation and pardon him?

Gordon shook his head and descended the stairs. He walked quickly across the concrete and onto the mobile. He didn’t have time to think about the future. He wasn’t even sure if he was going to have one, he realized sadly. The ram lurched forward on the electrified rail.

Crouched behind the controls, Gordon stared at the Magnum in his hand, though his mind’s eye pictured something different.

It had happened a little time before. It must have been at least ten minutes ago, but it felt as though hours had passed. How long had it been since the initial incident? It couldn’t have been more than an hour ago.

He remembered it very clearly. He was staring down a cement stairwell. The edges were painted fluorescent red. There was a curved cement wall in front of him, and an opening to the right. He had just finished fighting off some marines. Killing them.

_Vital signs critical,_ the HEV suit had whispered.

He remembered not feeling his legs or the left side of his body. He remembered wondering if this was how he was going to die, pumped full of morphine, with blood on his hands, and thirty feet underground in a concrete mausoleum. He remembered using grenades to hit the houndeyes, full of adrenaline and with nothing to lose. He remembered wondering if it was better to go out numb, if he could consider himself luckier than the screaming scientists and guards who were torn apart.

On the ram, Gordon replayed the scene in his mind. He didn’t want to face his mortality like that again until he was very, very, old.

**Author's Note:**

> Tough luck, Gordon. You exist in an FPS game.
> 
> Thank you for reading. :-)


End file.
